Apple Removing Ping From Next Version of iTunes
In response to a question about Apple's Ping social network at the D10 conference last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said "the customer voted and said 'this isn't something that I want to put a lot of energy into'."Apple hasn't done much with Ping since it was released more than a year and a half ago, and Cook's statement indicated that trend would continue. Now, All Things Digital's John Paczkowski says that Apple will be discontinuing Ping, rather than letting it wither from neglect.
And rather than continue to maintain Ping, the company is abandoning it and using its partnerships with Twitter and Facebook to make its various software and service offerings social in a way that consumers actually care about.Ping was intended to be a social network for music that would help users discover new music, and let users to follow favorite artists and friends. Ping would also create a custom chart showing music selections based on those followed.
Sources close to the company say that Ping, which still exists today in iTunes 10.6.3, will be gone with the software’s next major release, likely scheduled for this fall. And at that point Apple’s social networking offerings will shift to Twitter and new partner Facebook entirely.
Though Ping gained 1 million users in its first two days of availability, the service never really caught on.
[ 118 comments ]
Hilton Worldwide, a company that operates thousands of hotels around the globe, today announced plans to roll out new mobile-based check-in and room selection tools, as well as digital...
Following the publication of several photos over the weekend showing what was claimed to be the bare logic board for the upcoming 4.7-inch iPhone 6, Nowherelse.fr now shares [Google Translate] a new...
Following yesterday's reported spotting of in-store digital signage from an Apple retail store in China showing upgraded specs for the Retina MacBook Pro, MacG.co now claims [Google Translate]...
Microsoft today launched a new commercial comparing its new Cortana virtual assistant to Apple's virtual assistant Siri, demonstrating how the former is able to perform contextually-aware tasks...
Apple is close to acquiring talk radio curation service Swell for about $30 million, reports Re/code. Swell's iOS app launched last year and allows users to listen to streaming audio from...
Apple may be planning to launch a slightly refreshed line of 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros complete with faster Haswell processors and 16GB of RAM standard, according to a photo said to have come from...
Claimed internal components for the iPhone 6 are beginning to surface with increasing frequency as it is now likely less than two months until launch. In line with those developments, a new set of...
Apple has acquired BookLamp, a "Pandora for books" startup that aimed to provide personalized book recommendations to readers via specialized algorithms, reports TechCrunch. BookLamp first...
